If you get hacked, what then?

[Scud]

One of my programmers actually gave me a "hacking" lesson one slow day at work. I won't tell you how he did it, but it was disturbingly easy. Bottom line, it isn't usually an insecure server, it's the user account's lack of a strong password. He hacked into an email account at one of the main free providers. Had he wanted, he could have then used that same account and the now known password to log into this person's other accounts; banking, social networking, etc. He immediately logged off. It's illegal, even if you don't do a thing.

Bottom line: make sure you use a strong password. 8 characters with a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Jim Smith would be an idiot to use jims, for instance. Better would be MniJS62!. To remember that password is: My name is Jim Smith and I was born in 1962!.

Once you're hacked, the hacker can either change your password and the account is his or he can continue to monitor everything you do, including new sites you sign up with. So be really careful.